


The Ridiculous Adventures of Blue Eyes and Cat Noir

by Shatteeran



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Getting Together, Liam Has No Idea What's Going On, M/M, Miraculous Ladybug!AU, OR IS HE, Secret Identity, Theo Has a Plan, Theo is Cat Noir, Theo with Cat Ears
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2020-06-15 03:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19603090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteeran/pseuds/Shatteeran
Summary: Theo Raeken may have a past with the Puppy Pack, but his feline alter ego gets to meet them for the very first time...And if that cat is more flirty than catty with a certain blue-eyed boy, well, who would ever complain?Seriously. Who?





	1. Teaser

**Author's Note:**

  * For [manonlemelon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manonlemelon/gifts).



> Manon, sorry it took me forever... Fitting Liam into a Marinette persona just would not satisfy me no matter how many times I tried.
> 
> But here we go now! Hope you have fun reading!

The hidden door slides open, creepily quiet on the humid concrete floor. Behind the Ouroboros sign, the Beacon Hills sewers vomit additional darkness on the hollowed shadow standing in front of them. The hooded silhouette shivers; with rage or with fear, no one would be able to tell. Neon lamps flicker to life on the ceiling as the hissing humanoid steps in the secret lair, letting its feet drag on the dusty ground. The flashes of unforgiving white lights bring forward earlier memories of the evening, as they would in a poorly-lit, B-rated TV show. The flashbacks intensify the growl emanating from the creature. It recalls the blurred parallels of the rushing tree trunks, as it ran ahead of the McCall Puppy Pack through the Preserve, letting their olfactory sense guide them towards the sour, fear-ridden scent of their prey.

In spite of the measured pace of its footing, the monster intently walks towards the row of cabinets. In a fit of anger, claws are freed from a mudded sleeve and sends the glass vials and tubes, carefully labeled and stored on the shelves, crashing. A raucous laugh echoes the jingling cacophony of their fall. It resembles the pitiful mewling they had heard once they had finally cornered the runner, back against a pile of freshly-cut logs, stacked too high for the smallish, trembling animal to jump over. The clawed hand currently destroying the scientific equipment had been flat, then, slowly extended in order to make blunt human nails appear even less threatening.

Still, Corey had yelled: “DON’T KILL HER!”

And the man had frozen. He had looked at his companion, then back at the wide-eyed kitten, too terrorized to understand the Pack’s goal to capture her and to return her to her mother. Then he had turned away to stare at Corey once more.

The item he seeks in the abandoned laboratory turns out to be stowed away in an inconspicuous drawer. Closing a manic fist around the yellowish jar, he quickly locates a discarded syringe. He ponders sanitizing it for a moment, but his impatience gets the better of him. His enhanced organism will protect him for any actual risk anyway. Focusing his grey eyes on the needle as he fills the reservoir with the silver liquid sloshing in the retrieved container, he remembers Corey’s embarrassed face at his own outburst. He remembers Mason’s cough, too quiet to pass for a denial, as he taps on the syringe to chase the air bubbles. Most of all, he remembers Liam...

He soundlessly stabs his arm with the pointy tube, but growls at the memories of the wide blue eyes, of the overpowering confused scent of ozone, of the passive stillness of his only friend in the entire world, as he was wrongly accused, once more, of planning a murder. The liquid penetrates his veins, crawls up his limbs. All his muscles spasm, and the chimera falls on his knees, retching through the shards of metallic pain coursing in his blood.

They’ll never believe he changed, will they?, the monster thinks bitterly while all the bones in his body snap, reshape, rearrange themselves, and heal, several times in a row. He howls. Finally, the transformation settles. He lets himself drop on his side; a tremor shimmers on his skin. A grin slides on his lips. He’ll make them see, he’ll make them all see... He murmurs to himself, still shaking with aftershocks:

“I’ll show you what Theo Raeken is made of.”


	2. Opening scene

****_One week later_

Liam mournfully glances towards the other end of the hallway, his trademark pout firmly in place. Eleven feet from him, Theo is dutifully trading some books in his backpack for a bunch of other supplies he impeccably puts away in his locker. The young beta can perceive the dedicated aloofness in every movement of his friend’s shoulder blades. It’s all he’s seen all week: Theo’s back. At school. In class. In the parking lot. The scene is getting old, no matter how much care of his vertebrae the chimera suddenly seems intent of taking.

“He’s still not answering your texts,” Mason asked from where he leant against the row of lockers, a good thirty seconds worth of staring ago. Liam flails.

“Who?” he shouts, embarrassed, the outburst getting him the immediate attention of the student body milling about. Theo throws a curious look in their direction. Liam forces open the first locker door his hand settles on, almost poking his best friend’s eye out in the process.

Mason watches, for about seven seconds, as Liam hides his upper body behind a metallic door covered in pink glitter and unicorn stickers before he slams it closed.

“Him. The First Chimera. Your responsibility.”

“Are we talking about Theo again?” Corey rudely asks, appearing out of thin air and intruding in their conversation. The chameleon is actually not dumb enough to use his powers in public. Liam just doesn’t pay that much attention to him; he’s either attached to Mason’s hip, or attached to Mason’s lips, anyways.

“Mason,” Liam corrects as he shuffles towards his next class, “is talking about Theo. I wasn’t. I w-“

“Staring from afar like a kicked puppy abandoned under the rain,” Corey unhelpfully supplies, from his default position: glued to Mason’s waist.

“Why don’t you just go talk to him?” Mason repeats, for the hundredth time since the incident.

“He’s mad.”

“Yes, hence the talking to him.”

“He hasn’t talked to me since we came back from the Preserve.”

“Still making my point.”

Liam grumbles. Theo’s stupid back just walked out of sight. It’s not like he needs him around or anything; he just had enough of being disliked for a lifetime.

“Why me? I’m not even the one who panicked and accused him of trying to kill Princess Mia!”

“Princess Mia?”  
“The kitten, Mase.”

“Yes, I know. I… Whatever,” Mason resumes after a judgemental quirk of his eyebrow and a dismissive shrug. “You’re the one he’s in l-“

Corey’s mouth surges against Mason’s, effectively cutting him up mid-sentence. See what Liam has to put up with? His friends are simply rude, there’s really no other way to see it. They enter the classroom, and Mason finds his rightful seat near Liam, while Corey sits behind, because the world has not completely tipped over, and some rules remain sacred.

“Are you still meeting with your special friend, tonight?” Mason whispers as they set their notebooks on the desk.

“Do you guys rendez-vous somewhere?” Corey intones.

“Do you have to get involved in every conversation?” Liam growls.

“I’m the one you told about him while we were running laps,” the once blissfully shy chameleon boy answers. “Mason wasn’t even there!”

Liam gapes. He fiddles with his pen, automatically sends it turning above between his fingers.

“Yeah,” he relents eventually, possibly trying to divert this particular turn of the conversation. “Yeah, he’ll be there... I’m sorry, Cor’. I’m just a bit under the weather, lately.”

“It’s okay,” Corey reassures him; truthfully, Liam is lucky to have him as a friend… “You miss Theo.”

…or NOT.

“What?”

“He’s your anchor,” Mason agrees.

Liam burrows his head under his crossed arms on the table and groans.

“I don’t miss Theo,” he says to the sleeves of his sweater.

“Obviously,” Mason snarks.

“We’re crazy to even bring it up,” Corey adds.

Yes, crazy.

^__^ ^__^ ^__^  
(≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚)

A few hours later, the rising moon finds Liam at the edge the forest, ears attuned for unnatural noises, eyes trained for danger, dissecting the shadows in search of suspicious activity.

His “special friend” flips from the tree branch he was perching on and lands near him. They both wait in silence for the crackles of dead leaves on the forest soil to dim. Liam casts a glance in his direction. Like the nights before, he’s dressed in black, with pants so tight on his skin the werewolf wonders how he can even move, and a matching fitted hoodie jacket his ally always zips to his neck. Under the spiky strands of his dirty blonde hair, which jiggle every time he moves, his emerald green eyes shine with his usual mirth. The creature crouches, one arm raised above his waist: the claws at the tip of his fingers reflect the silvery light of the stars.

“If you’re done ogling me, can we go and start fighting supernatural crimes?” he says, flirtily, voice deep and vibrant with so many emotions Liam can’t tell them apart.

The beta wolf snorts. He watches, entranced, as the additional pair of ears twitches above his friend’s head. Cat ears. Actual cat ears covered in dark fur, looking even softer than the hair they peak from. He glances at the black tail, protruding from his pants and batting the air with impatience.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Let’s go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next: Chapter 3 - Opening Theme


	3. Opening Titles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soon available in sing-along karaoke version...

They start running through the Preserve, Liam covering the ground, while above him, his ally jumps from trunk to tree branch. The beta wolf cannot doubt the strength of the feline creature for a second, not with how high and how far he jumps, like a mattress spring going loose. It resembles Derek’s fighting style, Liam decides. The teenage werewolf rather tends to barrel into his obstacles. He huffs, refocuses his energy on running faster, zigzagging through the roots and bushes.

What has his life become? How has he been reduced to patrolling the McCall territory at night with a perfect stranger? Life sucks. He misses Scott. Words pour out of his mouth with each exhale, unaware of his grumbling as he struggles to keep up...

_In the daytime, I'm Liam Dunbar_

_Just a normal guy with a normal life_

Liam spares a glance above the tree line, his enhanced vision catches the balancing movement of a black tail on the night sky.

_But there's something about me that no one knows yet_

_Cause I have a secret_

He’s not-so-secretly glad for the company, though. With his Alpha and the rest of the class gone, Liam feels lonelier than he has ever been carrying the weight of supernatural guardian on his shoulders. His only real support had been Theo. For a while, the werewolf had even thought they could make it work.

_Another day, I'm back at school_

_I think about him, he's so cool_

But the chimera has been ignoring him since the diplomatic incident with Princess Mia, leaving Liam alone to fend for the good people of Beacon Hills. The wolf wishes Theo would scream at him, and punch him, in the same way they usually dealt with their disagreements in the past. But this situation unsettles and unnerves him.

_He looks at me, I look away_

_But does he see me anyway?_

Theo is so inconsistent. He just can’t stop being infuriatingly secretive...

_Oh-oh-oh_

_He´s got me spinning around_

... not unlike his newfound “special friend”. And…- Liam’s foot hits a rock buried into the forest soil. He trips, full-speed...

_Oh-oh-oh_

_My feet are off the ground_

_..._ and crashes, after a short yet noisily flight, heels over head, back against a pine tree.

_Oh-oh-oh_

He groans in pain, lets himself pitifully slide against the trunk, then the ground. His eyes flare gold as the healing process kicks in.

_And when the sun goes down_

Liam glares at the moon, a mix of longing and annoyance twirling in his blood.

_That's when I become_

“ _Ridiculous_ ,” he mutters, dejected.

The cat lands on his feet, already hunched over Liam’s sprawl of limbs, curiosity etched in the few of his features Liam can distinguish around the mask.

“ _Simply the best_ fall I’ve ever witnessed, Blue Eyes. Even when you stumble, you’re gracious,” his ally offers, voice devoid of a hint of irony. Liam snorts. He knows better than to trust the sincere tone; he’s friends with Theo, after all.

_Up to the test when things go wrong!_

His mood sours as his mind goes back to the chimera.

_“_ Am I supposed to join in the chorus or something?” the feline wonders aloud with a smile. He leaves Liam’s side, then, too, and climbs up a fallen tree trunk. The wolf watches his tail swing left and right as he progresses on the improvised beam.

_Mischievous, the funniest!_

“How much did you hear?” Liam questions, embarrassment spreading a flush on his cheeks at the thought of his frustrated rant being overheard. He gets up quickly. His friend’s cat ears shuffle as he answers.

“Not much. Enough to know it’s a duet,” he clarifies, before comically waggling his eyebrows. “And that I’d be the perfect voice to sing it with you. If only I’d learnt the lyrics…”

“Whatever. Let’s go home!”

“As you wish, Blue Eyes.”

_The power of love, always so strong!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up - Featuring.


	4. Featuring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could Liam's week get any worse?  
> Yes. Yes, it can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.  
> I feel like we all successfully know where this is going.  
> Which is the goal, because also I feel like we always know where these animated TV series meant for kids are going, too. It's a big part of the enjoyment, at least for me.
> 
> I guess I'm trying to explain why the plot is so straight-forward. Which. Maybe I should shut up.  
> But yeah, intended.  
> Please enjoy the simplicity of their life-altering problems with me. ^^

_Meanwhile, on the other side of Beacon Hills, ominous murmurs rattle the metallic doors of a sleepy warehouse. The hunters gather around their leader, a tall, lanky figure, whose rigid posture temporarily blends with the abandoned heavy machinery... until he speaks. They can’t distinguish the movement of his lips, hidden behind the grimacing tiger mask he wears at all times, but his voice rings deep and clear in their hideout._

_“Let the hunter become hunted,” he incants, “let the aggrieved become grief, let the killer...”_

_“Die,” they all shout in unison, unbothered by the dust they disturbed in their agitation._

_“Tim,” says the masked tiger, “we’re coming for ya.”_

^__^ ^__^ ^__^  
(≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚)

“Liam! You’re late for school!”

Liam groans and turns under his covers, hand absently patting his bedside table for a phone that he already sent flying through his open window when it first woke him up 42 minutes ago.

“Did you stay up last night again? You better trust me,” the voice of her mother continues to yell from the bottom of the stairs. “You can’t check the time with your phone anyways! I can hear it buzzing on our front lawn. It’s 7:49.”

“WHAT? Why didn’t you wake me up?” Liam shouts, even as the entire content of his bed - him included - spills over and falls on the carpet.

“I’m your mother, not your maid,” comes the familiar, good-humored answer. Liam pours a drop of toothpaste on his finger before sucking it into his mouth, letting the mint freshen his breath. The strong flavor stings his nose.

“Besides,” his mom eventually adds while he saunters to get into his jeans. “You can still make it if you ride with your friend, the one who picks you up and drops you with his truck, but never comes in.”

“Yeah,” Liam drawls, realizing as he does it how much he sounds like the chimera. “He’s ... busy,” he lies. He picks a discarded shirt from the floor, sniffs it, gags, drops it, shuffles to his closet with a sigh.

“What did you do?”

“Muuuum!”

“Sorry... Am I supposed to believe you aren’t fighting?”

As he shrugs the first clean shirt he found, Liam wonders how his mother has so much free time in the mornings to stand at the foot of the staircase, just so she can harass him. He swears he will never understand.

“Theo and I aren’t fighting,” he yells back. “This time,” he mutters to himself. “And it’s none of your business anyway!” he finishes, louder, for her benefit. He slips into his sneakers, grabs his backpack, and tumbles down the stairs, taking in his mother’s fake mulling expression... Danger.

“Is that what Theo is? Your business?” She wonders, finally. He stares, his own face a mix between gobsmacked and affronted. The devil who passes for his mother smiles merrily and hands him his lunch. She claps her hands and crosses the hallway back to the kitchen, but keeps on torturing him, because that’s what parents are for, after all.

“Thankfully, Ruben can give you a ride. It’ll give you a chance to catch up with your cousin.”

Liam’s stomach drops; the ruffle of a paper bag tells him he might be clamping too hard on his sandwich.

“BEN!?” He shrieks. “Ben’s here!?” And Liam believed his week couldn’t get worse... not that Theo being pissy had been that bad, or anything... Liam just doesn’t like being late for school. He’s a young man who happens to pride himself in his punctuality, that’s all.

“What’s up, short stuff?” taunts the dreaded familiar voice of Liam’s older cousin from the living-room. Liam ignores him.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” He whines as he joins his mom and takes a seat at the kitchen island.

“Because it’s none of your business,” she echoes with a giggle, even as she pours him a glass of OJ. He groans.

“But he’s so annoying,” he mumbles. A laugh answers his not-so-quiet complaint. “I’d rather be late to school than to get a ride with him.”

Her mother raises a challenging eyebrow at his statement. But Liam sticks to his decision. He inhales deeply and repeats, louder.

“I’d rather be late to school than to get a r-“

^__^ ^__^ ^__^  
(≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚)

Liam crosses his arms as he sinks in the heated seat of his cousin’s Sedan. On his left, Ruben passes a hand in his blonde hair, as spiky as Liam’s would be if he hadn’t let them grow.

“So,” his cousin starts conversationally, but Liam knows better. “You haven’t changed at all. I totally would have recognized you…”

Liam turns towards him, mouth gaping with indignation. 

“We haven’t seen each other in ten years!”

“Yep,” Ben quips. “When are you going to grow up, short stuff?”

Liam would belittle his family member back, but Ruben’s growth spurt had hit him when he was 15. In a few months, he had gotten bigger than Liam was now. And he apparently even kept on growing after Liam’s aunt and uncle moved away. The merciless teasing had stopped with their departure. But his cousin visiting has obviously rung the opening of a season of jokes at Liam’s expense.

“Face it, shorty, you’re still tiny,” Ben taunts. Liam finds him incredibly immature for a 24-year-old.

“Well, you’re rude. You didn’t even tell me you were visiting.”

“I told Jenna,” his cousin counters. “It’s not my fault she thinks you’re too much of a baby to be told things.”

“I tild Jinne,” Liam parrots, tongue sticked out. “It’s nit mi felt shi thinks yi’re tii mech if e bibe.”

Ruben snickers; Liam watches the same blue eyes he is used to see in the mirror crinkle with laughter.

“Really mature! Maybe your growth is impaired because you’re still a baby inside!”

“Not a baby,” Liam sulks. “I’ll have you know, I got a girlfriend.”

His cousin’s smile softens. He stares in the distance, and Liam thinks, that in spite of his ratty uni t-shirt and his torn up pants, Ruben suddenly looks rather old.

“Thanks for having me know,” the driver says, solemn before he makes a swift turn, happily sending Liam’s body against the door. The werewolf harrumphs with the shock. Using the momentum, he extends one of his claws, and, under the cover of his torso, leaves a long scratch in the upholstery. Meanwhile, he offers a saccharine smile at Ruben; Theo would be proud… not that Liam is thinking about him, because he’s not. He doesn’t care what Theo thinks.

“And where is this girlfriend of yours?” Ben wonders.

Liam bites his lip.

“She left town.”

The car swerves as his cousin’s laugh fills the air.

^__^ ^__^ ^__^  
(≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚)

Liam closes the car door without a second look as soon as Ben’s sedan is parked. He runs towards Mason and Corey, ignoring his cousin screaming at him to be nice with girls. And to make lots of new friends. And to wash his hands after he goes tinkle. And that he loves him. Eventually, Liam raises a hand far above his head to flip him, and the trio makes their way inside the high school.

“Am I dreaming,” Mason intones, “or was that Ruben Dunbar?”

Liam growls lowly.

“Who’s Ruben?” Corey asks, on Liam’s other side.

“Liam’s older cousin. He’s graduated from college now, hasn’t he?”

“His cousin?” Corey plows on. “Like… Five-year-older-than-you cousin? So-straight-he-is-hot cousin? That cousin?”

Mason grins at him. Liam determinedly ignores them. He refuses to take part into this conversation.

“Why can’t I be the ‘so-straight-he-is-hot’ cousin?” Liam wants to know, and he curses himself internally for caring, even if only a little bit. 

“Ruben’s better-looking,” his poor excuse for a best friend answers with a shrug.

Liam shoulder-bumps him into the wall of lockers for good measure. Mason levels him with a wide-eyed glance above a telling smirk, as if he silently questioned Liam’s action. _Seriously?_

The werewolf raises a judgemental eyebrow in response… _You asked for it!_

A snort behind them interrupts their staredown. Liam swirls abruptly on his feet and is met with the cold glare of Theo Raeken, leaning on the other side of the hallway.

“Showtime,” Corey whispers, pushing a reluctant Liam towards the chimera. The boy resists with the full power of his supernatural strength, but something on Theo’s face changes to betray eagerness.

Liam closes the gap between them in three steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up - Initial Situation.
> 
> (But really, lots of Theo/Liam interaction, I promise. I'm done with introductions.)


	5. Default situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the plot supposedly thickens...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how this ficlet became an intricate non-sense about werecats' biology... But here we are. All questions are now answered, I think. Right? Right?

If the chalky scent of frustration hadn’t been grating on Theo’s nerves, he’d simply have to glance at Liam’s tense, almost comically tipped backwards, body to notice the werewolf’s reluctance. Even as he shuffles towards Theo, Liam makes no secret of his strong desire to run in the other direction.

 _Good for him,_ snarks a voice, clearer than his own, at the back of his mind.

Theo considers giving Liam a very literal cold shoulder, but he eventually relents and turns around fully. He finds Liam with his blue eyes open wide, apparently very busy opening and closing his mouth like a bored trout. The chimera raises an eyebrow to snap the fish out of the murky water he’s sinking in, but even his judgemental stare fails.

 _I’m in love with an idiot_ , the voice purrs, visibly amused. Theo cringes.  
“Liam?” he tries, growing impatient - _and a little bit vexed_ \- at the beta wolf’s hesitance.  
“Yes?” the trout answers, blinking several times, pouty lips shiny with saliva.  
_Fish... Delicious._

Theo snaps his fingers several times between them; to break the spell Liam has fallen under or to shut his own catty inner voice up, he doesn’t want to dwell upon.

 _Kiss the fish boy!  
__No,_ Theo forbids in his mind, but he has yet to assert his dominance over the animal who settled where the coyote and the wolf once resided.  
_The fish boy! Kiss..._

The cat insists and scratches, incessantly in his belly. Liam shifts under his glare, and a whiff of mild fear, tinged with a richer smell Theo’s inner feline doesn’t recognize yet, tickles the chimera’s nostrils. It just feels _wrong._

 _Kiss... kiss_ , the animal whines.  
“What do you want, Liam?” is what comes out of Theo’s mouth instead.

The acrid traces of discomfort and apprehension, never totally absent in the high school hallway, invade Theo’s senses and cloud his reason. Where he’s used to tone down an urge to growl, to puff up, to charge, he now struggles to fight the itching need to stick his claws in the nearest limb. He shivers as the hair raises on his nape.

“What, Liam, WHAT?” He hisses.

The werewolf takes a step back, dumbstruck. Weary. Inside Theo, the cat’s voice has finally gone quiet. Observing. The feeling of _wrong, wrong, wrong_ solidifies in the pit of Theo’s stomach. The boy in front of him isn’t Liam. It cannot be. Liam Dunbar doesn’t keep resolute eyes on the floor. His shoulders don’t drop with doubt and uneasiness. He doesn’t stand near Theo as if he’d rather be anywhere else. _Wrong._

“I see you found a replacement chauffeur in no time.”

The accusation is what finally breaks Liam out of his stupor.

“Ruben’s my cousin,” the werewolf says defensively, batting the air with flailing arms. Apologizing. _Wrong..._

His gaze falls back to the ground dejectedly. _Wrong, wrong, wrong..._

 _“_ We never thought you were about to kill Princess Mia,” Liam rushes, words cascading out of his mouth now that the lid seemingly popped off.  
“Princess Mia?”  
“The kitten.”  
“Yes, I know. I ...” Theo falters to a stop, slightly amused by Liam’s insistance at calling the rescued pet by her given name, even though they probably spent a total of ten minutes with the frightened ball of fur. Calling the victims by name is probably an important chapter in the McCall Pack’s How to Hero Guide Book; and Liam would take the recommendations a tad too much to heart... Theo smirks. For a blissful second, the reformed villain lets himself believe they are going to mend their relationship; then, Liam utterly ruins the chances of it ever happening.

“I don’t know why Corey screamed... what he screamed.”  
_Smooth_ , the cat off-comments.  
“It’s just something he said,” Liam continues. “Like a reflex. It has nothing to do with you, I swear.”  
_Wrong. So, so wrong._

The werewolf just confirmed what Theo already knew. His actions don’t matter. He can risk his life a hundred times for Liam and his friends, can drag himself through hellish remembrances of his past a thousand times; it isn’t enough, will never be enough for the Pack to forgive and forget, for them to change their first opinion on Theo. After all, that’s why he made the decision to complete the Dread Doctors’ plan for him a week ago. When he first came to Beacon Hills, the repentant villain had managed to stall, arguing that a wolf form would more easily earn him Scott’s trust. He hadn’t been in a hurry to revisit his former allies’ lair after their defeat, there had been no reason to. But the McCall Pack had finally given him one. One motivation Liam’s apology had just hardened: if Theo Raeken was forever evil in their eyes, then he’d become someone else. Something else. The creature the Geneticist had always designed him to be...

 _Kiss fish boy, now?_ , Theo’s inner cat demands.

While Theo rethought his decision through, Liam’s explanation has broken into a confused ramble, smelling hesitant and slightly angry around him, as if they were right back where they had started when the chimera had crawled out of the ground. He’s the enemy to deal with and get rid of all over again... The idea leaves him hollow and vulnerable and hurt, somehow more than the first time around. So Theo plasters a cold and indifferent smile on his face, an expression Liam immediately recoils at, eyes narrowed in suspicion and disapproval.

“Thank you for clarifying, Liam.”

He leaves without another word, leaves Liam behind to glare and gape and bore a hole in his back, leaves the hallway and the high school and himself altogether. Time for his alter ego to jump in!

^__^ ^__^ ^__^  
(≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚)

“You’re late,” is what Liam greets him with, when Theo lands gracefully - if he does say so himself - on all fours at the edge of the Preserve, later that day.  
_And you’re a grump,_ the cat snarks, amused.  
“Aww. Did you miss me, Pretty Eyes?” Theo says instead, then he twirls, arms spread out: “This perfection takes time, you know?”  
_Gotta lick my...  
_“...self clean before each of our meetings,” Theo repeats dumbly with his cat’s voiced thought, then he winces. _Creep._ He quickly flicks his ears in alternance to distract Liam’s attention, and sighs with relief when the familiar blue eyes get lost above his head.

With two quick jumps, he climbs up a pine tree and hangs himself from the lowest branch, feet firmly anchored on the trunk to stabilize himself. He shakes his free hand to display his extended claws. Theo finds his new, elongated set of weapons better at slashing, whereas the wolf paws made it easier for him to get a purchase on his opponents. His new fangs, on the other hand, are utterly ridiculous, more for show than fight: far smaller, and with a nasty tendency of poking out and glistening, even when he’s just remotely annoyed. And then, there’s the tail...

“Shall we go, Blue Eyes?” He suggests before gathering his strength and preparing for a dive through the foliage.  
“Wait!”

The call still carries some of Liam’s earlier anger, but most of it already quietened, clearing the suffocating, carmin scent around them.

“I gave you my name,” the boy continues.  
“Everybody knows your name,” Theo counters, then he whispers to the wind, lets it roll under the syllables: “Liam.”

The werewolf refrains a full-body shudder; but he persists, now glaring.

“I don’t know yours.”

The chimera had anticipated this particular line of conversation: “You can call me whatever you like,” he offers, smoothly.

“Really?”  
Theo revels in the familiar excitement he detects bubbling on the boyish face. He dips his head in approval.  
“Let me think, let me think,” Liam rambles, suddenly pensive. “You’re dressed in black.”

Theo releases the branch holding him and slides down the trunk, casually leaning against it when his feet reach the forest soil, bathed in the rising moonlight.

“You’re a cat.” Theo raises a blunt finger and flicks his own cat ear, smirking challengingly.  
“Wait, is that offensive?”  
_No, Little Wolf, it’s not offensive,_ he answers in his head, restraining his outside reaction to a simple smile.  
“And you’re,” the blue-eyed boy makes a complicated gesture with his hands, “agile, I guess. Graceful. In a cool, mysterious, kind of way.”  
_Which isn’t hard, compared to your habit of greeting trees with your forehead,_ the feline thinks while pulling a backward flip on the spot to emphasize Liam’s point.  
“I don’t begin to compare with you,” he chooses to counter instead, surprisingly truthfully, once he recovers his balance.  
“I think I have the perfect name for you,” Liam concludes, happily. Theo loves the carefree expression on him. He would give his whole world if it meant Liam could remain this joyous at all times. “I’m going to call you... drum roll, please...”

Theo pleasantly obliges.

“... Darth Puss!”

_DOG BREATH SAYS WHAT?_

Theo coughs, while the werewolf stares up at him, elated with his proposition.

“My friends call me Cat Noir,” he suggests, not as kindly as he swore himself to.  
“Luckily, Darth Puss,” Liam quips, giggling, “we’re not friends.”

The cat shakes the affront from his muzzle.

“Shall we go?” Liam calls, then he adds: “Darth Puss?”, and he launches through the Preserve, letting the shift rip over his muscles as the trees pass him by.

They run in silence for a while, Liam racing below as Theo covers the higher ground, until the chimera catches the lingering saltiness twirling behind his companion’s scent. Prompted directly, Liam never opens up about his issues; but Theo knows how to distract him whenever the younger boy gets stuck in his own head.

“If you persist on calling me... that,” he starts, “I’ll be forced to give you a nickname, too.”  
“You already call me ‘Blue Eyes’.”  
And _Pretty Eyes._ And _Little Wolf._ And _Baby Wolf._ All inefficient substitutes for what I really want to call you.  
_Mine.  
__Yes, Darth, thank you for pointing out the obvious,_ he internally snaps at his inner cat, who merrily hisses in reply.  
_Darth?  
__Yes. If you are going to continue to pipe up with unwanted opinions, you might as well have a name.  
__Name’s not Darth. Plagg.  
__You certainly are a plague... Darth is the name Liam picked. Now sh-  
__Liam?  
__Yes. He pick-  
__Kiiiiiiss..._

Theo groans at the renewed, persistent, request.

“I could call you...” he finally answers Liam out loud, a bit too late.  
“Shh. Did you hear that?”

A second howl dies in the distance, right after the first. The whine is interrupted by the obvious bang of a fired gun. Wordlessly, they start running towards the source of the noise. Theo pushes himself to arrive first, letting the branches whip his body as he throws himself from one tree to the next, intent on protecting Liam from whatever menace emerged in Beacon Hills. But he is still learning how to use his feline abilities, has not quite yet grown into the cat creature he’s supposed to be. He hisses in frustration, emotion heightened by the thrill of the chase and the anticipation of the imminent danger.

When the thick foliage breaks into a clearing, Liam already stands at the outskirts, assessing the situation. An aged oak tree towers in the middle of the field; at its base, cowers a terrified young man, on his knees. A hunter’s gun presses against the boy’s temple, who, in spite of his elongated fangs and golden irises, looks more desperate than dangerous. Werewolf. The attacker’s stance displays his challenge, his tall figure facing Liam, even if the canon remains directed on the trembling kid: Liam cannot come closer, or the victim will be shot. Two other hunters are slowly creeping towards the beta, weapons at the ready, but otherwise not looking particularly intent on catching him. A planned, aimed, strike.

_Sneak._

Theo spares a glance at Liam, who growls menacingly, crouched to avoid the first salve of bullets the hunters could decide to shoot any second. He has to act fast... and silently.

“So,” Liam suddenly shouts. “What’s with the mask?”

His question is directed at their leader, who is holding the poor werewolf hostage, but it effectively distracts all the hunters. As he crawls and hovers in the branches towards the oak, Theo wonders if Liam has figured out his plan. He spares a glance towards the enemy and takes in the black and white tiger mask covering his face. It takes him a moment to realize why it looks wrong, spookier than expected: the colors are inverted; the white stripes marbling the black mask join at the eyes, giving the face a haunted appearance. The hunter doesn’t answer the provocation. His acolytes aren’t firing either. Theo holds his breath and creeps closer. He’s almost there...

“Seriously, Mr Hunter?” Liam continues. “Are you really ugly underneath? Because, we’ve seen worse...”

The enemies tense at Liam’s faux-pas, but the werewolf recovers.

“I can stomach it, you know. Even if the others are gone...”

It’s enough information to keep the hunters busy, maybe even to trick them into revealing what they know of the McCall Pack’s situation, or even their plan. In any case, Liam’s words release the tension in their shoulders: they now believe he’s alone. The chimera chooses his moment to pounce. He drops right in front of the tiger, knocks his gun off-target with his left palm. The shot fires upwards, surprising the other two hunters, who make the mistake of turning their eyes away from the beta werewolf... Theo doesn’t let himself be distracted. His right hand grips the weapon and tears it away from the hunter’s hold. He throws it, up and behind, while his opponent crouches, slides a long dagger out of his boot, but Theo somersaults above him, grabbing the attacker’s wrist, twisting his arm until the blade rests against his throat. Theo glares at the terrified werewolf, still on his knees at the foot of the tree. The boy must be around his age, he absently thinks, even as he orders:

“Run.”

The victim hightails towards the forest without a “thanks”. Ungrateful little guy!

_Flea bag..._

Finally, Theo’s emerald green eyes settle on Liam. He’s unharmed _,_ but in a precarious situation. The werewolf has grabbed both of a hunter’s wrists, easily maintaining his two knives away from his body. He’s also using his opponent as a shield, slowly pivoting on himself as to always keep the henchman in the trajectory of the other hunter’s visor. The beta cannot escape a threat without temporarily offering an unprotected flank to the other. In spite of the sweat accumulating on his forehead and the tension in his snarl, Liam’s holding on. For now... Theo roar-shrieks - there’s no other word for the high yet guttural call which escapes his throat. He closes his fist around the dagger’s blade, ignoring the biting sensation when it slices his palm, and pulls it free from Tiger-face’s hold.

“Liam?” he shouts.  
“Ready,” the boy answers, determined.  
“NOW!”

In one swift move, Theo discards his captive, throwing him further away from the scene. Deftly, he aims, then lets the dagger slide through the air. It whistles as it crosses the field towards the gunner, then plants itself at the back of his knee. The attacker topples over with a pained yelp, which provides Liam with more than enough time to overthrow his opponent, head-butting him first before knocking him out with his elbow. Meanwhile, Theo has launched himself, almost on all fours, through the grass, towards the injured hunter. The man’s face twists with pain and hatred as he slowly, shakily, raises the gun again in direction of the werewolf. Theo tears the weapon out of his hands with a well-placed kick on his wrist; the next second, Liam’s trademark punch effectively renders him unconscious.

The calm falls back on the woods, only disturbed by the heavy pants of the two supernaturals. The two hunters lay around them on the forest soil, their tiger-masked leader nowhere in sight. Theo watches the skin of his palm knit itself back together, then, tentatively, he raises his closed fist.

“Pound it!”

Liam hesitantly mirrors the movement, but eventually relents. They bump fists. They share a half, complicit, smile.

“Who was that?” Liam asks, suddenly all business again.  
“Someone with obvious bad taste,” Theo replies while inspecting his own clothes for speckles of mud. “Our fashion sense is obviously unparalleled.”

Liam snorts, then turns away to peer into the darkness of the woods, towards where the leader of the hunters escaped. Inside Theo, the cat is quiet once more. Observing, expectant. Tired. His host is starting to detect a pattern there...

“Face it, Liam. We fight crime and we make it look good!” he tries again.  
“Do you think he’ll come back?” Liam asks, sniffing the air exaggeratedly; unfortunately, Theo doesn’t fair much better in the scenting department since his transformation.  
“Certainly,” he answers, as he crosses his arms and leans against a tree trunk, tail balancing behind him nonchalantly.  
“Think he’ll attack again?”  
“Undoubtedly.”

They stand in the silence of the night. Theo fights a chill he wouldn’t even have felt with his past animals fighting around in his chest.

“You want to take the fight to him?” he eventually asks, more cold than he is tired of staring at the side of Liam’s face. The question animates the werewolf from within. His eyes light up, he shakes his shoulders, and raises his hands with enthusiasm.  
“Yes!” he shouts to the trees. “We need to find him first. I can get Theo to track his scent, he’s the best tracker, and…”

The rest of the sentence dies in the wind. The salty whiff of anguished sadness hits Theo’s nostrils.

“Who?” he questions, jokingly, desperately. “We don’t need whatshisname’s help, Blue Eyes. We’re the best team of good-looking crime-fighters around here!”

Liam’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up - Cut to Commercials
> 
> (A short, necessary, chapter)


	6. Cut to commercials

“Don’t eat yellow snow, Leeyum!” Ruben yells as he exaggeratedly waves his hand through the roof window of his Sedan. “And if a girl annoys you, don’t punch her! Maybe she just likes you and doesn’t know how to tell you...”

Liam hides the red rising on his cheeks between his hunched up shoulders. He all but runs inside the high school: it’s a matter of pride, after all, though he is apparently still willing to cast his aside, in exchange for a ride.

“Feel free to tell your friends! The more the merrier.”

Liam glares as yet another shrill shout disturbs his morning. He is truthfully thankful for the diversion; not one soul would remember the mocking words of his cousin after this ruckus. The beta wolf discreetly makes his way towards Mason’s locker.

“What’s going on?”  
“Nolan’s throwing a party,” Mason answers, tone too neutral to be uncaring, “he invited the whole year, if not the whole school.”

Liam snorts.

“And to think I was having such a good day...,” he mutters.  
“Theo didn’t reply to your text?” Corey asks, surprising Liam enough that he bumps his head, his elbows, and his butt against the row of metal doors.

He retains a pained scream, but the resounding noise still earns him the looks of the whole hallway. He massages his poor body to chase the bruises.

“Would you stop doing that?” He whines at Corey. “You keep appearing out of nowhere...”  
“Things would be easier if you just opened your eyes,” Corey answers, not unkindly.  
“You got that right,” Mason adds. Liam frowns.  
“What?”

Mason takes the time to pick his books and to place them in his backpack. He shuts the door of his locker close, then looks at Liam pointedly.

“No, he hasn’t replied,” Liam sulks. “I told him it was Pack business, like you said on the phone.”  
“What are we thinking? Are you going to try to track Tiger Dude alone?” Corey asks, because of course, Mason somehow managed to recount the entirety of the previous night’s events between the time Liam got home after midnight and their first class of the day.  
“It’s too hard,” Liam says. “And Cat Noir can’t do it either... But I can try and find the werewolf; maybe he knows something.”

They start walking towards the classroom, and Liam is already ducking again, desperate to avoid his...  
“Co-captain! Hey, co-captain! Liam!” Nolan shrieks.  
“Why me?” Liam mouths, before fully turning around, perfectly composed, his bitch face speaking for him. “What?”  
“You’re coming to my party, right? We jocks have that pack mentality.”

The assertion is wrong on so many levels Liam doesn’t know where to start picking it out. He’s not a jock, and neither is Nolan, for that matter. They have nothing close to a pack mentality, and if they somehow did, Nolan wouldn’t be included. And, finally, Liam feels rightfully insulted by Nolan’s tactlessness. How does he dare throwing a reference to werewolves in the middle of the hallway, months only after he planted his pen through Corey’s hand?

“Liam?” Nolan asks, apparently intent on pestering him until he takes the damn flyer. “You’re coming, right?”

Liam glares and crosses his arms, hoping to get his rebuttal across without having to speak. He might let out a growl at this point.

“Theo’s coming,” Nolan says conversationally, conspiratorially, even as he shakes his invitation in front of Liam’s nose, attacking him with the rainbow glitter some three-year-old must have spilled all over the paper. Nolan’s tactic is about as subtle as his decoration...

Liam snatches the offending flyer and crumbles it in his fist, but he doesn’t drop it, nor does he throw it in the trash can. He stomps away, fleeing the reactions of his friends. Between Mason and Corey’s telling looks, and Nolan’s overexcited parting shout, - “See you at my party, co-captain!” - Liam doesn’t know what’s worse. 

When Nolan turns back around to face the school’s entrance, he’s met with one intense, very much in his personal space, Theo Raeken. Theo smiles toothily.  
“Hunter failure,” he greets.  
Nolan squeaks. Theo steps forward. Nolan wedges himself in an open locker, butting the back of his own head against the metallic door. He groans, Theo smirks. He ceremoniously steals a flyer from the quivering pile in Nolan’s hands.  
“Sparkly,” he off-comments.  
“It’s a-a-a c-cost-tume p-party,” the boy stammers, “with costumes.”  
Theo hums, and finally, releases the pressure he exerted on Nolan’s personal space. The trembling boy squirms out of the locker. Theo smirks, patiently. Terrifyingly.  
“Liam is going,” Nolan blurts out, desperate to get him to leave.

Theo grins, before sliding a finger up across his own lips.  
“Shh.”

He carefully folds the flyer in four, shakes it above the floor to get rid of the excess glitter, then tucks it safely in the inner pocket of his jacket. He slinks away towards his first class, leaving a bemused Nolan behind him. Both boys wince when they hear a familiar voice scream:

“A COSTUME PARTY? KILL ME NOW!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Manon, would you like all chapters in one go? Or would you rather get them as soon as I'm done writing them?


	7. You're reading Ridiculous

Dark shadows once more spill down the walls of the abandoned warehouse. But, instead of the collected solemnity of the masked figure at their center, the henchmen are met with the dangerous wrath of their boss.  
“What did I say, no, what did I specifically say about the McCalls?”

Bengal stands, unarmed, in the middle of experienced killers. The moonlight dances on the razor edge of their silver blades, on the yellowish tartar of their gritted teeth. But not one of them even twitches.  
“WHAT,” their leader roars, “DID I SAY?”  
Then, tone saccharine, he adds, freezing the blood in their veins: “Or do you need to join Moe and Hark in the cells of Beacon County to finally remember?”

The youngest caves. His blonde hair is too long for his line of work, but he hasn’t been grabbed by a strand and thrown into the nearest wall yet. He will learn.  
“Do not engage.”

Bengal swirls around to face him, suddenly wielding a short dagger in his hand.   
“One of you,” he murmurs. “One of you got it.” He yells again, as he paces to glare at his captive audience. “AND THAT’S HOW MANY OF YOU WILL LEAVE BEACON HILLS ALIVE, IF YOU SCREW UP AGAIN!” 

“What about the other one?” asks another, more seasoned, mercenary, dark eyes firmly planted on the tiger mask.  
“The alley cat?” Bengal spits. “Slice his tongue! Skin it! Kill it! I don’t care what you do! BUT BRING ME TIMOTHY RISLEY!”


	8. Heart-to-Heart, interrupted

Liam forgets about stupid Nolan, his stupid party and his stupid costumes, the moment Cat Noir lands on the rock at the edge of the clearing, which has now become a familiar rendezvous point for them.  
“Blue Eyes,” he greets, deep, silky voice smoothly flowing between them.  
“Darth Puss,” Liam echoes.  
“You somehow look even more purrfect today. Did you do something to your hair?”

Liam almost falls face first (again) against the forest soil. He wasn’t even moving this time.  
“What?”  
“I’m saying you’re more beautiful every day,” Cat Noir says. He folds his arm behind his head and stretches. His tight black outfit sticks to his body, draws out his abs on the fabric. Liam is entirely focused on standing still. Cat Noir moves his ears absently to chase a loose strand of blonde hair, caught when he relaxed and brought his arms back by his sides. He ends up impatiently dragging his wrist against the black fur, seemingly unable to find a comfortable position. His piercing green eyes, complete with the entrancing dark vertical slit, flick to the subjugated werewolf.

“Cat got your tongue, pretty boy?” the cat taunts. Then, he slinks closer, exaggeratedly leans in Liam’s personal space. “Damn, I wanted in on that.”  
“Theo won’t help us track the werewolf,” Liam stammers. Cat Noir withdraws as if he’s been hit. His tail whips the air nervously.  
“Fine,” he sighs. “Who am I kidding? I love it when you’re all business with me anyways.”

His confident tone somewhat diminished by the way he slowly retreats in the green grass, all gracefulness and hurt pride, the werecat throws a puzzling look over his shoulder, then he jumps, grabs a low-hanging oak branch, and, using his momentum, quickly rotates around it, to end up safely on the solid wood, crouched in a predatory pose.  
“We don’t need this sucker, anyways,” the cat snarls. “I managed to track the werewolf. He knows nothing.”

A fresh breeze whispers in the greenery. Crickets raise their voices.  
“Why are we even here, then?”  
“Pleasure, of course,” Cat Noir replies easily, lying down against the bark, head propped on his forearm, while his other arm hang limply in the void. His black tail snakes up, left and right, a cautious balance for his nonchalant act.  
“Well,” Liam states, “I have biology homework, so.”

The comment snaps his ally to attention: he raises, straddles the branch. His tapered claws grate against the woods.  
“We should look for Tiger Dude, find his lair or something.”

He laces the end of his sentence with a joyous aggressiveness, exposing the wildness of the animal rattling in his chest. Liam crosses his arms.  
“You just made that up.”  
“Perceptive,” the cat drawls. “Smart really is sexy.”

The beta wolf snorts.  
“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though.”

Liam breathes in. The smell of dried Earth blends in the blooming essence of sap and the underlying prickly bitterness of decay: life and death flown to his nostrils in one big whiff. Underneath the forest, another scent, foreign, is discernable, like a violin suddenly playing counterpoint to a piano: Theo’s. The werewolf feels his muscles contract of their own accord, bending, coiling to ready him for a springy snap. He lunges towards Theo. Behind him, lost in the rush of the wind slapping his cheeks, comes Cat Noir’s worried voice:  
“Shouldn’t we start where we met the hunters? In the opposite direction…”

Liam only listens to his instinct. He disturbs plants and small trees in his haste, and he knows he will repay his carelessness later on, when they give away his exact location to whomever might track him, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He’s a wolf on a mission. His race takes him to the edge of the preserve, where the familiar scent of spices and licorice is amplified ten fold. The boy’s truck is parked on the side of the road, close to the vegetation. It would appear abandoned, if an accelerated - panicked - heartbeat didn’t register in Liam’s ears.  
“Theo?” He calls, ruder than he intended. Liam is the one intruding, after all. The answering silence deepens his annoyance: he doesn’t know why he needs to see him right this instant, but he feels at his core that it is not negotiable. “THEO!”  
“What?”

The sarcastic voice emerges from the foliage before its owner. Liam is temporarily blindsided by his urge to hug him, to touch, to get his hands on him in whatever capacity. He holds his ground.

^__^ ^__^ ^__^  
(≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚) (≚ᄌ≚)

Plastered against a tree truck, hidden from Liam’s searching glance until impatience gets the better of the Little Wolf, Theo squirms against the irregularities of the bark. He usually disregards his own discomfort, but his newfound powers have amped up his awareness to touch. And there’s also the fact that he’s currently dry heaving. He’s barely containing his fright.  
“Plagg, come back here!” he whisper-shouts, so low that his only proof that he was audible comes from his inner animal’s response.  
_No._

The main problem, of course, is that there is currently nothing _inner_ about the annoying cat at all.  
_Plagg!,_ he begs, while he follows the wandering feline spirit with his now regular eyes. (Yes, that’s another issue.)  
_No._

Theo tries another approach, less direct, more… manipulative.  
_I didn’t know you could_ , he bites his lower lip while he searches for his next words, _come out._

The small black cat ignores him, apparently too busy floating above the forest soil to dignify Theo’s comment with an answer. The chimera thinks about Liam, how easily the wolf could find him - them - at any moment, and ruin his carefully crafted plan. He reins his frustration in.  
_When I was a coywolf -…  
__Dog dumb,_ Plagg interrupts, throwing Theo a dark look over its shoulder. _Dog want pack. Together. Always. Dumb._

The language is simple, but the message remains clear. Theo is starting to understand that whatever communication passes through with the cat creature isn’t totally verbal.  
_Cat alone,_ Plagg emphasizes, then he struts away a few inches above the grass, tail raised behind him in a way that is both dismissive and offensive.  
_But Liam will figure us out,_ Theo counters, desperate. Liam is still calling behind him, in the clearing, asking why Theo is hiding.  
_Liam...?  
Yes, Liam. He…  
__Fish boy…  
Not this again_, Theo grumbles.  
_…Kiss…_

Theo groans, then hits his own head against the trunk of the chestnut to chastise his own negligence. Liam cannot find him. Not yet.  
_Drop it already.  
__Am you,_ Plagg purrs. He rubs his slightly translucid, resolutely immaterial back, against a stump. Theo can see the yellowish moss through the cat’s fur. _You want. I want._  
I want you to come back inside, Theo argues, _so I can shift into Cat Noir and take Liam aw-  
__No._

The spirit sits on the makeshift throne of wood and vegetation, its tail caresses the smooth, exposed, parts of the stump. Piercing dark eyes, circled with ghastly white, root Theo to the spot.  
_You don’t want to be here. Neither do I._

Then he turns around, jumps back into the air, pads away, silently.  
_Come back,_ Theo orders. _Plagg. Don’t be a jerk!_

The cat is already gone when its answer registers in Theo’s mind.  
_Am you…_

He sighs. Brushes himself off. Checks his hair into an imaginary mirror. Detaches his black mask, and hides it in the left pocket of his hoodie jacket. Then he steps out of the foliage, to face Liam alone.

“What are you doing here?” Theo sneers, hoping to throw the werewolf off. He might have lost his fairer, spikier, hair and emerald green cat eyes with his shift, but Theo is after all still very much wearing the same black clothes than his alter ego, minus the mask, evidently. He raises a judgmental eyebrow to complete his effect. He is successful, since Liam winces, then, and sticks both hands in the pockets of his black jeans.  
“I’m not stalking you,” the beta wolf defends against an accusation Theo didn’t quite formulate. “I am... I was... Cat Noir is...”  
“Cat Noir?” Theo cuts, eyes narrowed and chin held high. Liam stammers.  
“He’s helping me keep the town safe, you know, since…”  
“Is that a new imaginary friend of yours?” Theo keeps up, as if Liam hadn’t fumbled with an explanation. He crouches, then, shakes the intangible paw of an invisible cat. “Hi, Cat Noir, nice to meet you.”  
“Cat Noir is _real._ ”  
“And what’s your code name?” Theo snarks. The more he riles Liam up, the less attentive he will be. “Loup blue?”

Liam growls. He closes his eyes, grumbles under his breath and forces his breathing to calm down.  
“So. You found me,” Theo says. He walks protectively to his truck, leans, arms crossed over his chest, against the passenger door. “What do you want?”

Liam doesn’t respond. Theo reevaluates his strategy during the lull in their conversation. So far, the Little Wolf doesn’t appear to have caught on, even if Theo popped up into view seconds only after Cat Noir vanished. Theo would cuff him on the head for his lack of attention, if it didn’t serve his own purposes so well. However, the younger boy is going to wonder where his ally wandered off to any minute now; Theo needs to end whatever this conversation is and steer Liam away from this location. Fast.  
“Toddler Wolf?” he taunts.

Plagg is also a wild card. As much as Theo wishes for the cat spirit to be some sort of mental projection, he suspects that his reluctant partner will be very visible and audible to anyone it wishes to show itself to. And if the loss of his ability to shift is anything to go by, Theo can only assume he cannot rely on any of his other faculties, either. Not that he can be too sure of his hypothesis, considering he’s been struggling with control since his transformation, especially with his senses of smell and hearing.  
“Nightmares,” Liam exhales, with finality.  
“If you came here looking for nightmares,” Theo smiles, and he can’t prevent the underlying flirtation in his voice, force of habit, “you’re in the right place.”  
“No,” Liam quips, distracted. “Warm,” he sniffs, “like an old blanket, but sour, too, spicy.”

A pause. Theo stares at him, powerless to stop Liam’s inevitable deduction. The wolf’s gaze fixates back on him, strangely empty on a face Theo is so used to observe betray a myriad of emotions.  
“Corrosive,” Liam says, as his arms fall on either side of him. “You sleep here.”

Theo frowns, but otherwise stays silent.  
“You sleep here often. And not well, often,” Liam adds, still scenting the still air around them. His tone turns accusatory.

The older boy doesn’t mind the anger, nor the subconscious disappointment. But he feels exposed and vulnerable and weak, and Liam is trespassing on his private space.  
“Glad we covered that”, he spits. “Now, what do you want?”  
“For you to have a home,” Liam shoots back. Signs of his bristling anger vibrate around him. Theo can’t help himself: he rushes into that breach.  
“How pageant-like of you!” he snarks. “Let me guess, Mister Congeniality, you also would like to end world hunger?”  
“Are you?” the werewolf wants to know, and Theo sees the blue eyes peering at his body, inspecting him for signs of malnutrition. “Hungry?” Liam clarifies, his expression going soft with concern and…

Theo hates pity. He has always rather been feared. In his belly, shame and despise curl, hot, around each other. His mouth twists with disdain.  
“You should know better than to feed the animals, little wolf.”

He reigns his agitation in, forces his face to produce his trademark smirk, the infuriating one, the one he knows will put an end to their conversation.  
“They tend to bite the hand that feeds them.”

And as expected, Liam closes the gap between them, walks resolutely towards the truck, all but ready to wipe the smugness out of Theo’s face with his fist. But the knuckles stop a few inches away from his nose.  
“Go ahead, then,” Liam states. “Bite.”  
“What?”  
“Bite!” Liam orders. “If that’s what it takes for us to move forward, I can take it.”

Theo stares with horror the earnestness etched in Liam’s features, wonders how and when Scott McCall’s beta got so accustomed to violence that he would just offer himself to be mauled. _Especially_ by Theo. Deep down, he knows the other boy is trying to be subtle, metaphorical, and sweet, maybe. But whatever attempt Liam makes keeps on throwing Theo’s bloody past in his face. There’s nothing Theo can do about it, and at this point, he just needs Liam to stop trying. He doesn’t drop his fangs, though, doesn’t actually sink his canines into Liam’s flesh. He couldn’t - wouldn’t - draw blood, not anymore. But he does the next best thing to get his point across. He raises his arms, places his splayed hands on Liam’s pecs. And he brusquely pushes him backwards, grinning when the little wolf falls on his behind with a grunt.  
“Are you sure?” he mocks.

Then he jumps in his truck, and drives off, only dropping the pretense when he hears the frustrated scream tailing his car.

**Author's Note:**

> Bye-bye, little butterfly.


End file.
